Brian Ferrin, 38, speaks to a friend at Seccombe Lake Park Tuesday. Ferrin has been living on the streets off and on since 1999. Last week, San Bernardino City officials cleared the homeless people out of the park and now they are left with nowhere to go
SAN BERNARDINO >> The man called Preacher — his parents gave him the name Gabriel Gonzales, he says — is quick to tell passers-by he’s not homeless by choice. Not his own choice, anyway.
“God sent me to live with the homeless because that’s what he would do,” said Gonzales, adjusting a black baseball cap bearing a cross. “Hebrews 13: ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’”
Gonzales, who said he was born 64 years ago in San Bernardino and left his apartment here two months ago, most of the homeless people camped out there, days after the city last forced them to leave, would prosper if only the city worked with them and gave them jobs, like painting houses, he says.
“Kicking us out is awful!” Gonzales said. “Where else can they (homeless people) go?” He added that residents he’s talked to don’t mind the homeless.
But city officials say many people do mind the homeless occupying the parks, that they make potential visitors uncomfortable and discourage the kind of investment that’s needed to eventually turn the city around.
In April and May alone, residents submitted 22 complaints about homeless encampments, Lt. Rich Lawhead told the City Council last week.
And that’s why the city is now doing something about it, through a Quality of Life Team that consists of five employees from the Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments, a Burrtec worker and two police officers, Lawhead said. Illegal homeless encampments are one of several focuses for the team, which hauled away 102 tons of illegally dumped trash during that same two-month period, Lawhead said.
Residents voiced their support after Lawhead spoke.
“This is what we need to turn San Bernardino around,” said Darren Espiritu, who is also a parks commissioner.
But other residents are wary, including Inez White, who said she was homeless until a kind stranger allowed her to live with him and guided her through job applications a few years ago.
“I go down there as often as possible and give them food and drinks,” White said, acknowledging the city discourages that in favor of giving to organizations. “When I was homeless, not giving me a Popsicle when it was hot like it’s been wouldn’t have made me not homeless.”
The Quality of Life team works in conjunction with other efforts that aim to turn around the lives of the homeless, including a homeless access center also located at Seccombe Lake Park.
All of it is part of an approach that helps both the homeless and the city at large, according to Councilwoman Virginia Marquez, an advocate on homeless issues who also represents the downtown area that includes Seccome Lake.
“People want to help, but they need to know that by dropping off food and other things at the park, they’re not helping,” Marquez said in an earlier interview. “I do think we will end homelessness in the city, working with partners at the county and elsewhere. … We also need to be smart about it.”
Many long-term homeless say they would love to return to the life they once led, but that the city’s approach only makes it harder.
“I could get a job at McDonald’s and start saving money,” said Robin Mungerson, 56, who said she’s been homeless since taking a bad loan about 10 years ago. “But what about Anna (her dog)? What about my stuff? It’s not safe if I leave it here.” Mungerson said she and her husband have lived at Seccombe Lake about two years, since moving out of a friend’s backyard.
She’s been pushed out of the park a few times recently, she said, but she doesn’t know what to do except come back.
And, without prompting, she said she understands what the city wants.
“Police want us out of sight, so people can use this park,” she said. “But when (visitors) do come, there isn’t any fresh water. There isn’t anywhere to use the bathroom. How could anyone visit this park?”
Councilman Jim Mulvihill also zeroed in on the bathroom issue in response to those saying a more sympathetic approach to homelessness was needed.
“We do a lot to help the homeless,” he said. “Parks are meant to visit, not to live in or defecate in.”
Only one group at the 44-acre park Tuesday morning appeared to be visiting, but they said the homeless people there weren’t a concern.
“It’s a pretty nice park, as nice as anything else,” said Paola Miranda, 17, of Los Angeles, in town for the day with her family. “It’s not too different from home.”
Behind her, a man sang a version of Zac Brown Band’s “Whatever It Is.” Miranda smiled.
Quoting the song, she said, “He’s got whatever it is.”